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IN THE. SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. 


February 12, 1864. '«.,v 

Mr. Howard made the 

REPORT. 


The Committee on Military Affairs and the Militia^ to whom was referred 
Senate hill JV6. 37, entitled ‘■^A hill to prevent officers of the army and navyy 
and other persons engaged in the military and naval service of the United 
States, from interfering in elections in the States,” heg leave to report: 


The first section of the bill provides that ^^it shall not be lawful for any mili- 
taiy or naval ofiicer of the United States, or other person engaged in the civil, 
military, or naval service of the United States, to order, bring, keep, or have 
under his authority or control, any troops or armed men within one mile of the 
place where any general or special election is held in any State of the United 
States of America ] and that it shall' not be lawful for any officer of the army 
or navy of the United States to prescribe or fix, or attempt to prescribe or fix, 
by proclamation, order, or otherwise, the qualifications of voters in any State of 
the United States of America, or in any manner to interfere with the freedom 
of any election in any State, or with the exercise of the free right of suffrage 
in any State of the United States,and punishes any violation of this provision 
by fine and imprisonment, as well as disqualification to hold any office of honor, 
trust, or profit under the government of the United States. 

The second section provides that any officer or person in the military or 
naval service -of the United States who shall order or advise, or who shall, 
directly or indirectly, by force, threat, menace, intimidation, or otherwise, 
prevent, or attempt to prevent, any qualified voter of any State of the United 
States of America from freely exercising the right of suffrage at any general or 
special election in any State of the United States, or who shall, in like manner, 
compel, or attempt to compel, any officer of an election in any such State to 
receive a vote from a person not legally qualified to vote, or who shall impose, 
or attempt to impose, any rules or regulations for conducting such election dif¬ 
ferent from those prescribed by law, or interfere, in any manner, with any 
officer of said election in the discharge of his duties, shall, for every such 
offence, be liable to indictment as for a misdemeanor,^^ and punishes him with 
fine and imprisonment, and the like disqualification. 

The bill is founded upon the supposition that the military have in some 
instances interfered in an illegal or improper way with popular elections in the 
States, and seeks to prevent that evil for the future by the infliction of severe 
pains and penalties. 

That elections should be free from all violence and intimidation, is an axiom 
of free government accepted by all, and so evident that it need not be dis¬ 
cussed. Violence and threats of violence, and all disturbance, actual or threat¬ 
ened, calculated to keep the legal voter from the polls, or to constrain his free 
will and choice in exercising his right, are plainly incompatible with the prin¬ 
ciples on which our governments, whether State or federal, rest. But it must 
1 ( 1 ) 




0 



- INTERFERENCE IN ELECTIONS BY* 

at the same time be remembered that the 'purity of elections is equally esse: 
to the proper working of that theory,’ and that to admit to the polls persons 
possessing the requisite qualifications of age, citizenship, residence, &c., is 
no means a less injury to the rights of the lawful elector than open violence! 
No one pretends to excuse or palliate the offences of those who, being minors,^ 
or aliens, or non-residents, or without other qualifications demanded by the 
law, intrude themselves at elections and seek to defeat the will of those who are 
entitled; and no honest man, who is a friend of his country, would ever consent 
that persons who are hostile to that country, who are in arms against it, or con¬ 
tributing by word or deed to strengthen the hands of those who are making war 
upon it, should be allowed to associate as electors with those who defend it by their 
blood or treasure. The elective franchise is intended for the benefit of friends 
of the government under which we live, and those who are willing to maintain 
and uphold it, and for no others. It was never intended to be used by mere aliens, 

_ and least of all by enemies, whether domestic or foreign ] and any attempt of 
either class of energies to use that sacred privilege is just cause of resentment 
to the honest citizen, and of prompt interference by the government itself. 

It is said, by way of furnishing a precedent for the bill, that by the laws of 
England in force for more than a century, no body of the King’s troops is allowed 
to be near the place of an election while it is progressing. Reference is doubtless 
had to the act of 8th George II., (1735,) a copy of which we append to this Re¬ 
port, marked A. It cannot escape notice that the leading object of this ancient 
statute, as sufficiently evidenced by the preamble, was “ the preservation of the 
rights and liberties of the kingdom,” not their destruction. And the history of 
the time shows that the prohibition to keep military forces near places where 
'there was an election of members of Parliament, arose from outrages practiced 
upon the electors by the ministers in posting troops so as to overawe them, and 
coerce them into the returning of candidates friendly to the ministerial party, 
and the supporters of prerogative against popular rights. And we are told that, 
so far did this party push their schemes that in 1734, the year before the act was 
passed, the ministers, before fhe election took place, made out a list of the six¬ 
teen Scottish peers who were to be elected, which was approved by the Crown ; 
and that, among other foul means resorted to for securing their election, a bat¬ 
talion of the King’s troops weredfawn up in the court of Edinburgh, contrary to 
custom, and without any apparent cause but that of overawing the 'electors. This 
■ outrage appears to have been the immediate occasion of the passage of the act. 
It was passed in the interest of liberty, and in resistance of the tyrannical 
schemes-of the Crown and its flatterers to check its growth by stifling the voice 
of free election. 

No one need be told that, long anterior to the passage of any of the secession 
ordinances, there was a strong party in many of the'northern slave States who 
joined in the threat to break up the Union in the event of the election of 
a republican President. 

That there have been all along, and still are, great numbers of such persons 
in the several border States,” admits of no doubt. It is perfectly notorious 
that when the rebellion broke out, there were large and influential portions of 
the people of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware, who were open sup¬ 
porters and advocates of the rebellion. They were found in every neighborhood, 
in all branches of business, and all the walks of life. By thousands they entered 
the rebel army, both as officers and men, leaving at home thousands of friends 
and relatives as traitorous at heart as themselves. These last kept up the agita¬ 
tion in favor of secession and the slave confederacy. No locality was free from 
their agitations and their artifices. They encouraged the rebels by keeping up 
angry divisions at home. They sent information to, and were in constant com¬ 
munication with, the rebels and the rebel chiefs. Remaining in the midst of 
communities not in open insurrection, but apparently ready to spring tu arms 


3 



MILITARY AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 

against the federal authority, they industriously acted the part of spies, and did 
all in their power to thwart the efforts of the government. Multitudes of them 
were continually passing to and fro between the hostile lines, carrying to the 
rebels supplies of arms, provisions, clothing, medical and military stores, and 
bringing back encouraging stories of the prosperity of the rebel cause, and the 
hopelessness of the efforts of the government to defeat and destroy it. Their 
houses became the asylums of emissaries and spies from the rebel army, and 
rebel districts, and the refuge and hiding-places of rebel recruiting officers. And 
so formidable were they in numbers, influence, activity, and' craft, that during, 
the year 1861 the whole loyal population were under an apprehension, most 
painful and depressing, that they might succeed in shuffling those States out of 
the Union, as the bolder secessionists had done with the ten seceding States. 
And it cannot be doubted that, but for the presence of the loyal troops who 
hastened from the North to hold those States to their allegiance by the iron grip 
of war, they too would have proved false to the Union and Constitution, and 
would to-day have been, as communities, either in arms against the government 
of the United States, or in its military occupation. That they are still in the 
Union, and in the enjoyment of their rights and high privileges under it, is due 
to the Union bayonet, and to the spotless faith and heroic courage of the true 
Unionists they contain—far less numerous than has generally been supposed. 

One of the most obvious artifices for injuring the Union cause, and the one 
most easily practiced by these domestic traitors, was to bring about the election 
to Congress and the State legislatures of persons friendly to the rebellion, or at 
least opposed to the prosecution of the war for its suppression, and to the mea¬ 
sures adopted by the government to that end; and the undisputed history of the 
twelve months just past proves that they have not failed to take advantage of it. 
They have let slip no occasion of this kind, and it has required all the vigilance 
of loyal men to detect and counteract their schemes. .One principal prop of the 
rebel hope has ever been, and continues to be, the divided counsel of the loyal 
people; the assumed weakness of the government, growing out of the more 
democratic condition of the people of the North, among whom there is wanting 
any great and pervading pecuniary interest like slavery, to bind together all 
others, and give unity of purpose and vigor of action to the government. They 
have from the first acted upon the assumption that the North would become weak 
by its own party divisions, and would, after a few spasmodic efforts, give over the 
cause, yield to dishonorable terms, and finally fall into imbecile fragments, 
unworthy to be called nations ; an easy prey to foreign powers j the scoff of the 
slave-owning confederacy, and the future victims of its schemes of ambition. 
Hence they have omitted no artifice, no intrigue, no falsehood, or false pretence, 
to stir up disaffection among us. Among many others we may mention the insi¬ 
dious proposal made by their agents in 1862, to certain sympathizing friends in 
the northwestern States, to grant to those States the free navigation of the Mis¬ 
sissippi, and free trade with the confederacy,’^ on condition of their abandoning 
the war, and detaching themselves from the eastern States. 

It is vain to deny that in the present struggle the government of the United 
States is justly, and upon principles of public law, entitled to exercise towards 
their domestic enemies every belligerent right and power, every warlike ap¬ 
pliance, recognized in the code of war ) and that it is not only the right but the 
duty, of their offleers and agents, in waging the contest, to exercise the utmost 
vigilance in detecting, restraining, and punishing the common enemy, and all 
who abet, sustain, or encourage him. To deny to it this right is to lay it pros¬ 
trate and helpless at the feet of its deadly foes. 

Were the war a foreign war, waged with any independent nation, there could 
be no dispute as to the right of the government to expel from the country every 
subject of the foreign power, and every person justly suspected of giving it aid 
and comfort, or to hold such parties in confinement till the war should terminate. 


/ 


4 


\ 


INTERFERENCE IN ELECTIONS BY 

This right is in the primary class of belligerent rights, pertaining to every inde¬ 
pendent nation; and no greater absurdity can be proposed than to say that, 
although the federal government is vested with all the powers known to the laws 
and usages of war, and may, unrestrained by any constitutional prohibition, use 
them against the subjects of a foreign government at war with the United States, 
yet, as to an organized, wide-spread insurrection of whole political communities 
within their own limits, acting under a de facto, though a usurped government, 
it is stripped and denuded of this important means of annoyance and defence. 
It is plainly in its essence a military power—a belligerent right; as plainly such as 
the right of capture by sea, which has recently received the solemn sanction of 
the Supreme Court, in a judgment eminent for the power and clearness of its ana¬ 
lysis, the profoundness of its learning, and the unanswerable character of its logic. 

It does not by any means follow, that because the insurgents are individually 
subject in law to the authority of the United States, they are not to be treated 
as enemies. To yield to them the rights as citizens^ and the protection that in 
peace would be due to them as such, and at the same time to treat them and the 
communities to which they belong as enemies at war with the United States, 
involves a glaring contradiction. If they are in the sense of the law of war and 
nations enemies, as they are regarded, both by the legislation of Congress, the 
executive and the judicial departments of the government, the correctness of 
whose decision as to their true status cannot and ought not to be questioned, 
then they are lawfully subject, whether as individuals or communities, to the 
application of all the rules and means of warfare known to civilized nations; 
and this, in addition to the further and undoubted right of the government to 
punish them for the crime of treason they commit against it. We might appeal 
in support of this principle to the most eminent teachers of public law, but it is 
so well recognized that the task would be useless. 

If, then, they are enemies as well as insurgents, the rights of war give to our 
commanders in the field the use of all the means necessary to make the war on 
our part successful and effectual, and consequently justify them to resort to any 
and all measures calculated to defeat and thwart their schemes against our 
safety, whether those schemes be open violence or secret plots; whether they use 
the bayonet or the ballot to effectuate their traitorous purposes. Suppose a State, 
yesterday loyal, to-day passes an ordinance of secession, or declares itself neutral 
and indifferent between the contending parties, and proceeds by its de facto legis¬ 
lature to resist the authority of the government by open force, by attempting to 
prevent the levy of troops within its borders, or by attempting to prevent the 
passage of the Union troops across its territory; who will contend that it would 
not be the right and duty of the commander on the spot at once to disperse or 
arrest the legislature, to lay the State under martial law, and place in confinement 
every person found aiding the disloyal movement, or justly suspected of so doing ? 

And it is impossible to see any distinction in principle, between such a case 
and the case of disloyal voters, who at the polls attempt by their ballots to do the 
same thing. In either case hostility to the government and a desire for its over¬ 
throw stand as the sufiicient reason for the preventive interference of the military 
arm. Not to use it on proper occasions is to expose to destruction the government it¬ 
self, and the liberties and rights it guards. It is the inalienable duty of self-defence. 

That this inherent right of war may be abused, as it possibly may have been 
occasionally during the present struggle, is certainly no reason for denying its 
existence, or, if it exists, for stripping our commanders of it by legislation; and 
the present time, when disloyalists swarm at every poll in large districts of country, 
near the rebel lines, would seem to be most unpropitious for such an innovation. 
The committee believe that no such restraint should be placed upon this tutelary 
authority of commanders at all; because, though liable to possible abuse, we are 
persuaded that the evil which might accidentally grow out of it would be, as it un¬ 
doubtedly has been, as nothing compared with the good that flows from its exercise. 


9 


MILITARY AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 


5 


So far as fhe committee have been able to ascertain, the evil which the bill is 
intended to remedy, is almost wholly imaginary; and the fact that there is so 
little real ground for complaint against the military, considering the scenes of 
excitement and disorder in which they have been compelled to interpose, speaks 
loudly in praise of their justice and forbearance, and is high evidence of the im¬ 
propriety of passing the bill. 

The committee would hardly do justice *to the subject should they omit to lay 
before the Senate a sketch of such proceedings as have come to their knowledge 
in the use of this conservative power of our commanders, so far as relates to elec¬ 
tions in the border States. 

The Secretary of War, in answer to a resolution of the Senate of the 26th of 
January last, transmits to us a note from the Adjutant-General, from which it 
appears that no orders have, issued from the War Department to military com¬ 
manders in the States of Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware.—(Ex. 
Doc. 14, of the present session.) 

The- earliest step taken to preserve elections from the contamination of disloyal 
votes seems to have been taken by the Missouri convention, which deposed the 
rebel governor of that State. On the 12th of June, 1862, they adopted an 
ordinance which expressly excluded from the polls all persons who had, since the 
17th of December, 1861, wilfully taken up arms or levied war against the United 
States or against the provisional government of the State of Missouri. The fol¬ 
lowing is a copy of this wise and salutary ordinance :— 

Be it ordaiiied hy the people of the State of Missouri in convention assemhled 
as follows : 

Section 1. No person shall vote at any election to be hereafter held in this 
State, under or in pursuance of the Constitution and laws thereof, whether State, 
county, township, or municipal, who shall not, in addition to possessing the qua¬ 
lifications already prescribed for electors previously take an oath in form as fol¬ 
lows, namely : ^ I, --, do solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that 

I will support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the 
Constitution of the State of Missouri against all enemies and opposers whether ^ 
domestic or foreign ] that I will bear true ■ faith, loyalty, and allegiance to the 
United States, and will not, directly or indirectly, give aid and comfort, or coun¬ 
tenance, to the enemies or opposers thereof, or of the provisional government of 
the State of Missouri, any ordinance, law, or resolution of any State convention 
or legislature, or of any order or organization, secret, or otherwise, to the contrary 
notwithstanding; and that 1 do this with a full and honest determination, pledge, 
and purpose, faithfully to keep and perform the same, without any mental reserva¬ 
tion or evasion whatever. And I do further solemnly swear (or affirm) that I 
have not, since the 17th day of December, A.D. 1861, wilfully taken up arms or 
levied war against the United States, or against the provisional government of the 
State of Missouri: So help me God/” 

General Schofield, in command of the military district of Missouri, did not 
hesitate to issue his order declaring that Re should deal with any judge of an 
election as for a military offence who should admit persons to vote who were 
excluded by that ordinance; and he also declared obnoxious to the like punish¬ 
ment any person who had borne arms against the United States, or given aid and 
comfort to their enemies during the rebellion, and who should presume to act as 
judge or clerk of the then coming November election. The statutes of the State 
gave him no right to do this, and his justification can only be found in the duty 
he owed to his country as a military commander to prevent her enemies from 
obtaining an advantage, and for that reason the order was plainly legal and neces¬ 
sary. None but disloyal men have complained of it, because none but such could. 
The following is so much of his order, (No. 120,) dated October 20, 1863, as is 
necessary to illustrate the principle : 



6 


INTERFERENCE IN ELECTIONS BY 


General Order, 

No. 120. 

Judges of elections of the various precincts in Missouri are notified that they 
will be held responsible that, at the election on the 3d of November next, those 
persons, and only those, be permitted to vote who are entitled to do so by the 
laws of the State; and especially ths^t the ordinance of the State convention, 
adopted June 10, 1862, and published herewith, be enforced in every case. 

It is the duty of the judges of election at each precinct in the State to see that 
every person qualified % the constitution and laws of the State shall be permitted 
to exercise the elective franchise without let or hinderance; and it is equally their 
duty to see that those who are not qualified under the constitution and laws, or 
who refuse to qualify according to the terms of the annexed ordinance, shall not 
be allowed to vote ; and any action on their part excluding qualified voters from 
the polls, or admitting those loho are not qualified as stated^ will he punished as 
a military offence. 

Any person who has borne arms against the government of the United States, 
or voluntarily given aid and comfort to its enemies during the present rebellion, 
and who shall presume to act as judge or clerk at said election, and any county 
judge who shall knowingly appoint any such person as above described to act as 
judge at said election, will be deemed guilty of violation of military orders, and, 
upon conviction thereof, will be punished accordingly. 

In those parts of the State where there is danger of interference by guerilla 
bands, or by combinations of persons intended to overawe or intimidate legal 
voters, district commanders will so dispose their troops as will most certainly 
prevent such interference. 

Who can doubt that, without this order and the enforcement of it by the pre¬ 
sence of armed troops, the elections in that distracted State would have presented 
scenes of violence, fraud, and bloodshed, that would have added tenfold fury to 
the flames of civil and social war, under which she was apparently consuming ? 
And who can feel assured that Missouri would not to-day have been eifectually 
an ally of the rebels ? 

A similar order was issued by General Burnside, in Kentucky, on the eve of 
the election held in that State on the 3d of August, 1863. It is as follows: 

Headquarters Department of the Ohio, 
General Orders,") Cincinnati. Ohio. July 31, 1863. 

No. 120. [ 

Whereas the State of Kentucky is invaded by a rebel force with the avowed 
intention of overawing the judges of elections, of intimidating the loyal voters, 
keeping them from the polls, and forcing the election of disloyal candidates at 
the election on the 3d of August; and whereas the military power of the govern¬ 
ment' is the only force that can defeat this attempt, the State of Kentucky is 
hereby declared under martial law, and all military officers are commanded to aid 
the constituted authorities of the State in support of the laws and of the purity of 
suffrage as defined in the late proclamation of his excellency Governor Kobinson. 

As it is not the intention of the commanding general to interfere with the 
proper expression of public opinion, all discretion in the conduct of the election 
will be, as usual, in the hands of the legally appointed judges at the polls, who 
will he held strictly responsible that no disloyal person he allowed to vote^ and to 
this end the military power is ordered to give them its utmost support. 

The civil authority, civil courts, and business, will not be suspended by this 
order. It is for the purpose only of protecting, if necessary, the rights of loyal 
citizens and the freedom of election. 

By comniand of Major-General Bui'nside. LEWIS EICHMOND, 

Assistant Adjutant-General, 


MILITARY AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 


7 


It will be noticed that General Burnside, too, makes it a military offence for 
the judges to allow any disloyal person to vote; basing his order, clearly, upon 
the principle that an enemy of the country has no political rights, and is not to 
be treated for any purpose as a friend, while in our midst. The right to baffle 
public hostility in every form in which it may present itself must not be denied 
to the government. As well may you deny to the man who is attacked by an 
assassin the right of using all the faculties God has given him to disarm and 
destroy him. When the stuggle is for existence, no law can define the means by 
which it shall be defended. 

The Senate have referred to this committee, on the motion of an honorable 
senator from Kentucky, a printed address, in - pamphlet form, entitled ad¬ 
dress to the people and Congress of the United' Statesf for our consideration. 
This paper is signed by seven gentlemen, who style themselves a committee 
on behalf of the Democratic party.’^ Their names are, W. A. Dudley, Nat. 
Wolfe, R. K. White, J. H. Harney, W. F. Bullock, J. F. Bullitt, and R. C. 
Palmer. 

Had not the Senate seen fit to refer the paper to the committee, they would 
have’doubted'the propriety of giving to a document so manifestly and bitterly par¬ 
tisan in its characte'r—so evidently hostile to the great cause in which loyal men 
are freely shedding their blood, the importance implied by the reference, and 
would have preferred to leave it to sink into that oblivion which awaits all such 
endeavoi:s to embarrass the prosecution of the war and the overthrow of the 
rebels. But we must, as required, take becoming notice of the pamphlet, which 
we have carefully perused. 

It narrates with an air of sorrow the fact that in August, 1862, Governor Ma- 
gojfin, of Kentucky, resigned his executive trust, “ for the purpose of relieving the 
people, and especially that portion of them known as southern-rights men, who 
had been peculiar objects of persecution” It will be. remembered that Governor 
Magoffin, when called upon by the President in 1861 for volunteers to defend the 
national capital, rejected the request, and in terms not only insulting but redolent 
of defiance and treason, refused all aid to the national cause. That the resigna¬ 
tion of such a functionary was in fact a ‘‘ relief’^ to all loyal and well-disposed 
people is evident enough; but that the authors of the pamphlet should mat:e it 
ground of complaint that the party in Kentucky known as southern-rights men,’^ 
(that is, men favoring the pretended right of the rebel States to secede and make 
war upon the government,) had been the ‘^peculiar objects of persecution,” indi¬ 
cates so strong a sympathy with them as to convince every one that the great 
object of the authors is anything but the success of the war; anything but an 
earnest opposition to the plotters whom they commiserate. 

They state that, by a previous understanding with Magoffin, Mr. Robinson be¬ 
came the governor. They admit that early in September, 1862, the State was 
invaded by rebel troops, who for six weeks held possession of the greater por¬ 
tion of its territory ]” and aver that the people gave them little encouragement 
and few recruits, so that by the first of November they were driven from^ the 
Kentucky borders.^^ 

That there were vast numbers of traitors in Kentucky is evidenced not only 
by this admission of the authors that the invaders got some encouragement and 
some recruits during their occupancy of the State, but by the fact that, like the 
Missouri convention, the legislature had found it necessary to prohibit from vot¬ 
ing and to proscribe and expatriate all persons who had entered or should enter 
the rebel service in any military or civil capacity, or who should voluntarily give 
aid and assistance to the rebel forces. The number of these traitors was, it is 
reasonable to suppose, greatly augmented by the open establishment in Kentucky 
of a provisional governmenF^ in aid of the rebellion. The following is a copy 
of the act of expatriation to which we refer, appended to the address. It was 


8 


INTERFEEENCE IN ELECTIONS BY 


passed wlieii Magoffin was governor j and the fact that he refused to approve it, 
and that it became a law in spite of his veto, throws a very clear light upon the 
nature of the complaint contained in the pamphlet, that the southern-rights 
men’’ had been peculiar objects of persecution, th^ true interpretation of which 
would seem to be that it is tyrannical to drive out traitors or to exclude them 
from the polls.. The loyalty which satisfies itself with this is plainly not to be 
trusted, and no military commander would be doing his duty who did not hold it 
under the strictest watch and use prompt means to defeat its machinations. It 
is essentially disloyal, because it makes no practical distinction between open 
treason and open fidelity to the government in time of war. 

AN ACT to amend Chapter 15 of the Revised Statutes, entitled “Citizens, expatriation, 

and aliens,” 

Section 1. Be it enacted hy the General Assemhly of the Commonwealth of 
Kentucky, That any citizen of this State who shall enter into the service of the 
so-called Confederate States, in .either a civil or military capacity, or enter into 
the service of the so-called provisional government of Kentucky ia either a civil 
or .military capacity, or, having heretofore entered such service of either the Con¬ 
federate States or provisional government, shall continue in such service after 
this act takes effect, or shall take up or continue in arms against the military 
forces of the United States or the State of Kentucky, or shall give voluntary 
aid and assistance to those in arms against said forces, shall be deemed to have 
expatriated himself, and shall no longer be a citizen of Kentucky, nor shall he 
again be a citizen, except by permission of the legislature by a general or special 
statute. 

Sec. 2. That whenever a person attempts or is called on to exercise any of the 
constitutional or legal rights and privileges belonging only to citizens of Kentucky, 
he may be required to negative on oath the expatriation provided in the first sec¬ 
tion of this act, and upon his failure or refusal to do so, shall not be permitted 
to exercise any such right or privilege. 

Sec. 3. This act to be of force in thirty days from and after its passage. 

Passed and became a law, the objections of the governor to the contrary not¬ 
withstanding, March 11, 18B3. 

In 6rder to carry into effect this salutary and patriotic act. Governor Kobinson, 
just before the August election, issued the following proclamation: 


Commonwealth of Kentucky, 

Executive Department. 

For the-information and guidance of all officers at the approaching election, 
I have caused to be herewith published an act of the legislature of Kentucky, 
entailed ‘^An act to amend Chapter 15 of the Kevised Statutes, entitled ^Citi¬ 
zens, expatriation, and aliens.’” The strict observance and enforcement of this 
and all other laws of this State regulating elections are earnestly enjoined and 
required as being alike due to a faithful discharge of duty to the purity of ^the 
• elective franchise, and to the sovereign will of the people of Kentucky expressed 
through their legislature. 

Given under my hand, as governor of Kentucky, at Frankfort, this lOth day 
of July, 1863, and in the seventy-second year of the commonwealth. 


Py the governor : 

D. C. Wickliffe, 

Secretary of State. 


J. F. IIOBINSON. 


MILITARY AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 


9 


Considering the disturbed state of things in Kentucky, and the manifest dan¬ 
ger of rebel interference with the elections in numerous precincts, it is difficult 
to see any objection to the issuing of this proclamation. It was plainly neces¬ 
sary in order to call the immediate and earnest attention to the judges of elec¬ 
tion as well as the people to its important provisions, which had been in force 
but three months. Yet the authors of the pamphlet take occasion to denounce 
it, and to intimate that the real object of it was.to exclude their friends from the 
polls, which may be admitted if they regarded rebels as such, for it affected 
nobody else. 

Deeming it necessary to place the State under martial law. General Burnside, 
on the 31st, issued his proclamation to that effect, set forth above. 

It ought to be stated, however, that in the preceding June the authors, with 
many others, agreeing, as they say, in approving, with some exceptions, the reso¬ 
lutions of the Union Democratic Convention,” held on the 18th of March, and 
which had nominated Mr. Bramlette, but “ distrusting the sincerity of the men 
by whom those resolutions had been adopted,'^ addressed a letter to honorable 
Charles A. Wickliffe, “ which, they assure us, fully explains our purpose and our 
policy,and in which they add Mr. Wickliffe “ expressed his hearty concurrence.^^ 
The letter is as follows : 


Louisville, June 13, 1863. 

Dear Sir: The undersigned, in behalf of many in all parts of this Common¬ 
wealth, believe it a political necessity to reorganize the democratic party in the 
State, in association with those of the North who have stood by the government 
and the Constitution throughout this deplorable civil war. They constitute the 
only political party of the North with whom any party South will have any 
affiliation, whilst a political association between the two sections of the country is 
indispensable to a restoration of the Union. 

We cannot consent to the doctrine that the Constitution and laws are inade¬ 
quate to the present emergency—that the constitutional guarantees of liberty and 
property can be suspended by war. 

Our fathers certainly did not. intend that our Constitution should be a fair- 
weather document, to be laid away in a storm, or a fancy garment to be worn 
only in dry weather. On the contrary, it is in times like the present that con¬ 
stitutional restraints on the power of those in authority are needed. 

We hold the federal government one of limited powers, that cannot be enlarged 
by the existence of civih commotion. We hold the rights reserved to the States 
equally sacred with those granted to the United States. The government has no 
more right to disregard the Constitution and lavjs of the States, than the States 
have to disregard the Constitution and laws of the United States. 

We hold that the administration has committed grave errors in confiscation 
bills, lawless proclamations, and military orders, setting aside constitution and laws, 
and making arrests outside of military lines where there is no public danger to 
excuse it. 

It is now obvious that the fixed purpose^ of the administration is to arm the 
negroes of the South to make war upon the whites, and we hold it to he the duty 
of the people of Kentucky to enter against such a policy a solemn and most em¬ 
phatic protest. 

We hold as sacred and inalienable the right of free speech and a free press; 
that the government belongs to the people, and not the people to the govern¬ 
ment. 

We hold this rebellion utterly unjustifiable in its inception, and a dissolution 
of the Union the greatest of calamities. 

We would use all just and constitutional means adapted to the suppression 
of the one and the restoration of the other. 


10 INTERFERENCE IN ELECTIONS BY 

Having. observed your uniform and consistent course since the origin of our 
troubles, we believe you a faithful representative of our views, and urgently re¬ 
quest that you permit your name to be used as a democratic candidate for 
governor at the ensuing election. 

Yours, respectfully, 

W. F. Bullock. 

Robert Cochran, 

L. S. Trimble. 

Tlios. P. Hughes. 

R. C. Palmer. 

Alfred Herr. 

J. P. Chambers. 

Wm. K. Thomas. 

Wm. Gr. Reasor. 

Robt. K. White. 

J. H. Harney. 

Wm. Kaye. 

. N. Wolfe. 

S. M. Hall. 

John Herr, 

Chas. L. Harrison. 

Hon. C. A. WiCKLIFFE. 

On the 17th of July, nearly a year before the date of this letter. Congress had 
authorized the President to employ as many persons of African descent as he 
might deem necessary and proper for the suppression of the rebellion, and for 
this purpose to organize and use them in such manner as he might judge best 
for the public welfare.^^ This letter seeks to make a direct issue between the 
government of the United States and the people of Kentucky on this question, 
holding it to be the duty of the people of Kentucky to enter against this policy 
^Hheir most solemn and emphatic protest,and denouncing it as a scheme to 

arm the negroes of the South to make war upon the whites meanipg, of 
course, the whites of the South, or rebels; and to give this protest the indubitable 
character and force of a menace against the United States, they say, the govern- 
ro.ent (of the United States) has no more right to disregard the constitutions and 
laws of the States, than the States have to disregard the Constitution and laws 
of the United States.If this be so, who is to judge between them ? Plainly 
no one but the parties to the dispute are, each for itself, the final judges. This 
is the precise doctrine of the nullifiers of 1832 and the very essence of seces¬ 
sion. It denies all rightful authority in the government to put down a rebellion 
when the government de facto of a State has armed itself against the authority 
of the United States. And this monstrous principle, adopted directly from the 
rebel school, these patriotic writers dignify as conservative.^^ . It is not easy to 
imagine a more wretched abuse of the term. 

The writers, though pretending to hold the rebellion utterly unjustifiable in 
its inception,” leave a strong implication that it had become not unjustifiable, and 
seem to regard the employment of negro troops to ^‘make war upon the whites’^ 
in the rebel States as changing its original character from unjustifiable to the 
contrary. And such they and their candidate undoubtedly regarded it, and had 
in contemplation to take measures of violence to resist it. At this time the 
recruiting of black troops, under the act of 1862, was in active progress in 
Kentucky, Tennessee, and other slaveholding districts ) the State swarmed with 
rebel spies, as well as persons openly advocating and encouraging the rebellion; 
the rebel slaveholders all over the State were continually visiting the federal 
camps for the twofold purpose of hunting their forfeited slaves and practicing 


Joshua F. Bullitt. 
Geo. W. Johnston. 
Robt. M. Smith. 

T. J. Conn. 

W. A. Dudley. 

W. P. Simmons. 
John T. Bridges. 

T. J. Hall. 

Samuel N. Hall. 
Philip Tomppert, jr. 
Jesse F. Hainmon, 
P. M. Campion. 

W. H. Bailey. 

Jacob A buy. 

J. H. Price. 


military and naval officers. 


11 


their spy craft, thus keeping up a turmoil among the troops, producing frequent 
acts of insubordination, weakening discipline, and striving to defeat the act of 
Congress against the surrender of fugitive slaves by military persons. 

Under such a state of things, we are of opinion that the safety of the State 
and the success of our arms imperatively demanded that the State should be 
placed under martial law, and that if the general in command was guilty of any 
fault, it was for delaying that salutary measure too long. 

The authors of the address, with commendable truthfulness, say: It is very 
frankly admitted that we hoped and expected to obtain the support of the great 
mass of the southern rights men of the State. They were for the most part, 
democrats of long standing. Though classed by the adherents of the administra¬ 
tion as ^ disloyal,’ the great majority of them were not secessionists, and were 
entirely free from all complicity in the rebellion. So far from esteeming it a 
fault of which we should be ashamed, we regarded the effort to conciliate them, 
if it could be done without a sacrifice of principle on either side, as highly meri¬ 
torious ; and we now gratefully acknowledge the cordial support which that por¬ 
tion of our fellow-citizens were ready and anxious to yield to our platform and 
candidate whenever permitted to do so.^^ 

This is an express avowal of the purpose of the writers, and of Mr. Wickljffe, 
their candidate, to obtain the votes, not only of loyal democrats, but of persons 
who were open rebels, however numerous they might be. No one can deny 
this, and no one can deny that such a purpose was directly in the teeth not only 
of General Burnside’s proclamation establishing martial law, but of the statute 
of Kentucky of March 11. It invited open enemies whose hands were red with 
the blood of the defenders of the government, and who were loaded with the 
spoils of plundered loyalists, to come to the polls and participate in the election 
of the officers of a loyal State! There is but one step, and that a short one, 
between this invitation and openly embracing the rebel cause. Every man sees 
this ] and the loud protestation of such parties of their loyalty” only serves to 
make their purposes more transparent, their hypocrisy more glaring. 

One great object announced in the general’s proclamation, and one which he 
was bound by every sentiment of patriotic duty to carry out, was to prevent 
any disloyal person from voting at the polls. He regarded them, very properly, 
as enemies, not entitled to and not to be allowed the privileges of citizens. He 
was not bound to inquire whether, under the laws of Kentucky, such persons 
were admitted or excluded from the polls; they were, as enemies, amenable to 
the military authority of the United States, and whoever aided, encouraged or 
harbored them, while within fhe limits of our military occupation, was punish¬ 
able by the law of war. It was upon this obvious principle of the law of war 
that the general’s prohibition of the disloyalists to vote, and the judges of elec¬ 
tion to receive their votes, is founded. It must be borne in mind that the State 
was under martial law —a law which is the undoubted right of every commander 
in the field to declare and enforce whenever, in his judgment, the state of things 
within the limits of his command requires it. It is strictly constitutional, 
because the Constitution allows war to be carried on, and the establishment of 
martial law is one of the usual instrumentalities of carrying it on, and is often 
absolutely indispensable to the safety of the army and the success of the cause. 
Its effect is, if -the general so wills, to suspend the functions of all civil magis¬ 
trates, and all the ordinary transactions of society, placing everybody and every¬ 
thing, for the time being, at the disposal of the commanding general. It is the 
law of necessity, the necessity of existence—the supreme necessity of society. 
It is, of course, modified by the commander according to the degree of necessity, 
and ceases when necessity ceases. But while in force it is law, and punishes 
disobedience like any other law. 

That the state of things in Kentucky, or elsewhere in the United States, 
should have required a proclamation of martial law is certainly to be deplored 


12 


INTEKFERENCE IN ELECTIONS BY 


But neitlier the government nor General Burnside, nor any loyal citizen of Ken¬ 
tucky, was, or is, chargeable with producing it. It was the bitter fruit of trea¬ 
son, rebellion and civil war, crimes which must be met with force and a manly 
vigor worthy of the cause at stake. 

If, then, the proclamation was rightful in itself, carrying with it the force of 
law, as we hold it to have been, and if it was lawful to exclude a disloyal per¬ 
son from voting, it was assuredly not the less lawful to prevent a disloyal per¬ 
son fron placing his name upon the poll-books of the election- as a candidate; 
and the complaint of the authors of the pamphlet, that Mr. Wickliffe’s name 
was at several of the places of election struck from those books by order of 
the military, is without any legal foundation. He was regarded by them as 
disloyal person, at least as one whose conduct and declarations rendered him an 
object of just suspicion as being in the interest of the enemy, and dangerous 
to the United States; and the committee, from the general tone and character 
of the address itself, see no reason to dissent from their opinion. The naked 
fact of his soliciting the votes of avowed rebels and secessionists, in defiance 
even of highly penal laws of his own State, and in contempt of the military 
order prohibiting the judges of election to receive them—a fact admitted by 
tha pamphlet—would if th^ere were no other proof, be sufiicient, in our opinion, 
to subject him to the treatment he received. The leader of a party who, like 
the pamphleteers, censure their government at such amoment as this for keeping 
from the polls its open enemies, and who embody this charge as a principal ingre¬ 
dient in the grand climax of angry and false accusation, that the very devotion 
of Kentucky to the Constitution has been the means whereby to deprive her peo¬ 
ple of every constitutional right,has little ground to complain when he is 
shoved aside by the iron hand of that military power which is smiting down 
those same enemies by his side. 

It is enough to say that, notwithstanding the manifest party exaggerations 
and distortions of fact„of this pamphlet, it does not allege that any loyal man 
who ofiered to vote for a loyal candidate was excluded or in any way molested 
by the military authorities. The orders of the subordinate commanders were, 
so far as they are embodied in the pamphlet, and so far as we have been able to 
ascertain, in strict accordance with General Burnside’s order and the statute of 
file State, which we have cited; and the pamphlet admits that these orders 
‘were carried out with rare fidelity by those to whom their execution was in¬ 
trusted.” Possibly wrong may have been done to individual voters or candi¬ 
dates ; but if so, the authors of the pamphlet have failed to point them out, or 
to direct attention to that quarter where the proofs may be obtained; and we 
dismiss the subject referred to us with the remark, that if Kentucky politicians 
will cease all party alliance with rebels, there will be no need for martial law in 
that commonwealth. 

We come next to the State of Maryland. Governor Bradford, in his message 
to the legislature of that State, of January last, devotes much attention to the 
subject, which, he observes, “ for some time past, has greatly agitated and 
alarmed the people of the counties of the State, and caused many complaints and 
appeals to me for interposition by some of the best and most faithful of our citi¬ 
zens.” We append so much of his message as relates to this subject in an ac¬ 
companying paper, marked B, in order that his views and statements of fact may 
be seen in connexion with our own remarks upon them. 

The recent Maryland election is a fruitful topic of complaint. The governor 
and one of her senators unite in denouncing it. The former, in his message, in¬ 
forms the legislature that “ a part of the army which a generous people supplied 
for a very different purpose, was on that day employed in stifling the freedom 
of election in a faithful State, intimidating its sworn officers, violating the consti¬ 
tutional rights of its loyal citizens, and obstructing the usual channels of commu¬ 
nication between them and their executive.” And a senator of Maiyland has 


MILITARY AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 


13 


indulged in expressions which nothing but the most flagrant invasions of the 
elective franchise can excuse. 

But the weight of these imputations is'seriously diminished by two considera¬ 
tions : both gentlemen owe their positions to an election conducted under the 
same auspices; both gentlemen are now on the losing side of the election which 
they impeach ; and the country has not forgotten that it is the bad habit of the 
defeated partisans of the slavery interest to blacken the opponents whom they 
fail to defeat. 

For years the country was taught to believe that the elections in Baltimore 
unfavorable to their partisans were carried by the intrusion of thousands of fraud¬ 
ulent votes and the exclusion by bloody violence of thousands of voters. In 
an evil day they ventured to contest an election on those allegations; and the 
committee reported that only twenty-five illegal votes were cast^ and only fifty- 
seven persons were excluded from the polls. 

A critical examination of the conduct and influence of the military authorities 
at the recent election will sufiiciently show that the arts of exaggeration have 
not deteriorated under the auspices of the present representatives of the slavery 
interest. Their clamor is that of disappointed partisans, not the outcry of the 
oppressed. 

The circumstances of the contest narrow the inquiry to a single congressional 
district. 

In four of the five districts there is no pretence of military interference. 

In three of the districts, now represented by Messrs. Thomas, Davis, and 
Webster, there were no opposing candidates. 

In the fifth district an avowed secessionist was elected, and the governor 
makes no complaint of military interference with his election. 

In the first district the pro-slavery candidate was defeated; and from that , 
district alone is any complaint heard. 

The governor and those who were defeated with him complain of the military 
order. No. 53, and of the manner of its execution. We append the order and 
the modification of it by the President of the United States, marked C. 

The complaint contains its own refutation on both points. If the order was 
needless in the governor’s opinion, that opinion was not, as we know, shared by 
many of his fellow-citizens; and some equally associated with its history took a 
very different view of what the honor and safety of the State required. It is 
enough to say that Governor Thomas H. Hicks, the predecessor of Governor 
Bradford, by him appointed to the Senate of the United States, and now. just 
elected by the legislature which sprang from this election, gave the general the 
following advice: 


Cambridge, October 26, 1853. 

My Dear Sir : Our election is now near at hand, and I see no restriction 
placed upon the disloyal of our State. It does seem to me that if nothing else 
is done, there should be a stringent oath prepared, and the judges required 
to exact it of all doubtful voters, and they refusing shall not vote. 

I shall be glad to hear from you as early as possible. 

I am, with great respect, your obedient servant, 

THOS. H. HICKS 

Major-General R. C. Schenck, U. S. A. 

Perhaps that alone ought to silence the voice of criticism. But those who 
urge the complaint will be more afifected by the authority of General McClellan; 
and Governor Bradford will, perhaps, appreciate the pertinence of the following 
order of that general in aid of his own election : 


14 


INTERFERENCE IN ELECTIONS BY 


Headquarters Army of the Potomac, 

Washington, October 29, 1861. 

General : There is an apprehension among Union citizens in many parts of 
Maryland of an attempt at interference with their rights of suffrage by disunion 
citizens on the occasion of the election to take place on the 6th of November 
next. ' 

In order to prevent this, the major-general .commanding directs that you send 
detachments of a sufficient number of men to the different points in your vicin¬ 
ity where the elections are to be held to protect the Union voters, and to see 
that no disunionists are allowed to intimidate them, or in any way to interfere 
with their rights. 

He also desires you to arrest and hold in confinement till after the election all 
disunionists who are known to have returned from Virginia recently and who 
show themselves at the polls, and to guard effectually against any invasion of the 
peace and order of the election. For the purpose of carrying out these instruc¬ 
tions you are authorized to suspend the habeas corpus. General Stone has received 
similar instructions to these. You will please confer with him as to the particular 
points that each shall take the control of. 

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

R. B. MARCY, 
Chief of Staff. 

Major-Gen. N. P. Banks, 

Commanding Division. Muddy Branch, Md. 

The existence of that order had probably escaped the governor’s recollection 
entirely. 

It would have been, perhaps, fortunate had the contrast of General Bix and 
General Schenck been likewise omitted ; for it is apparent that the letter of 
General Dix fully covers the order of General Schenck ; and tha order of General 
Bix, whose text the governor has not cited, is more stringent than that of his 
successor in command. We supply the omission. 

Headquarters, Baltimore, November 1, 1861. 

To the United States Marshal of Maryland, and the Provost Marshal of the 
City of Baltimore: 

-Information has come to my knowledge that certain individuals who formerly 
resided in this State, and are known to have been recently in Virginia bearing 
arms against the authority and the forces of the United States,' have returned to 
their former homes with the intention of taking part in the election of the 6th of 
November instant, thus carrying out at the polls the treason they have committed 
in the field. There is reason also to believe that other individuals lately'residents 
of Maryland, who have been engaged in similar acts of hostility to the United 
States, or in actively aiding and abetting those in arms against the United States, 
are about to participate in the election for the same treacherous purpose, with the 
hope of carrying over the State by disloyal votes to the cause of rebellion and 
treason. I, therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me to arrest all per¬ 
sons in rebellion against the United States, require you to take into custody all 
such persons in any of the election districts or precincts in which they may ap¬ 
pear at the polls to effect their criminal attempt to convert the elective franchise 
into an engine for the subversion of the government, and for the encouragement 
and support of its enemies. • 

In furtherance of this object, I request the judges of election of the several 
precincts of the State, in case any such person shall present himself and offer his 


military and naval officers. 


15 


vote, to commit’ him until he can be taken into custody by the authority of the 
United States : and I call on all good and loyal citizens to support the judges of 
election, the United States marshal and his deputies, and the provost-marshal of 
Baltimore and police, in their efforts to secure a free and fair expression of the 
voice of the people of Maryland, and at the same time to prevent the ballot-box 
from being polluted by treasonable votes. - 

JOHN A. BIX, 

Major- General Commanding. 

And the letter of Greneral Dix to the judge of election in Carroll county, pub¬ 
lished by the governor with his message, is so singularly in accordance with the 
order of General Schenck that we cannot refrain from incorporating it. That it 
should be invoked to condemn the order at the late election is a striking illus¬ 
tration of the blindness which presides over these attacks. 

Headquarters Department op Pennsylvania, 

Baltimore, Md., November 1, 1861. 

♦ 

Gentlemen : I have received your letter of the 29th ultimo; asking me to 
issue a proclamation authorizing you to administer to all persons of doubtful 
loyalty, who offer their votes at the approaching election, an oath to support the 
Constitution of the United States. If I had the power I would most cheerfully 
do so, for no one who is false to the government ought to be allowed to vote. 
But the constitution and laws of Maryland provide for the exercise of the elec¬ 
tive franchise by regulations with which I have no right to interfere. I have 
this day issued an order, of which I enclose a copy, to the United States mar¬ 
shal and the provost-marshal of Baltimore to arrest any persons who have been 
in arms in Virginia if they appear at the polls and attempt to vote, as we are 
told some such persons intend, and to take into custody all who aid and abet 
them in their treasonable designs-; and I have requested the judges of election, 
in case any such person presents himself at the polls and attempts to vote, to 
commit him until he can be taken into custody by the authority of the United 
States. ' 

I consider it of the utmost importance that the election should be a fair one, 
and that there should be no obstruction to the free and full expression of the 
voice of the people of the State, believing, as I do, that it will b'e decidedly in 
favor of the Union. But it is in the power of the judges of election under the 
authority given them, to satisfy themselves as to the qualifications of the voters, 
to put to those who offer to poll such searching questions in regard to residence 
and citizenship as to detect traitors, and without any violation to the constitu¬ 
tion or laws of Maryland, to prevent the pollution of the ballot-boxes by their 
votes. . 

I am, very respectfully, yours, 

JOHN A. DIX, 

Major- General Commanding. 

Daniel Engel and William Ecker, 

Inspectors of Election, New Windsor. 

Of these orders and this letter, intended to protect the polls of 1861, we have 
never heard a word of complaint; for at that election Governor Bradford was 
chosen to his exalted office, and the senator of Maryland who impeaches the late 
election was elected to the house of delegates of Maryland, and the legislature of 
which he was a member, and which elevated him to the Senate of the United 
States, was chosen. 

If the order of General Schenck was illegal, it is quite apparent it was in the 
line of precedents of the most conservative gentlemen, and complaints of General 


16 


INTERFEEENCE IN ELECTIONS BY 

Schenck come with a bad grace from gentlemen who profited, in silence, by the 
orders of Greneral McClellan and General Dix. 

It would seem that those who have criticised the order have not taken the 
pains to read it, or have been so blinded by passion as to have been unable to 
understand or fairly to represent it. 

It is quite certain it does" not place ^Hhe polls under the surveillance and at 
the command of the military authorityIt is not open to any such imputation. 
It contains no requirement that any loyal man would refuse. It does not even 
require the party questioned to deny he has been a rebel in arms against the 
United States, but, very improperly we think, permits him to vote on swearing 
to be loyal in the future. 

It is not true that the military, aided by the provost-marshals, were to 
arrest voters whom they might consider disloyal approaching or hanging about 
the polls.^^ 

It is not true that a prescribed form of oath was furnished, without taking 
which no one if challenged could vote.’’ 

The order carefully abstains from giving the military officers any discretion 
respecting the persons they are ordered to arrest. They are not authorized to 
arrest any one merely because he is disloyal; the taking of any oath is not 
made a condition precedent to voting, and no one is authorized to exact any oath 
of any voter. 

It directs the arrest only of two classes of persons : 1st, those who have been 
engaged in rebellion against the lawful government, or have given aid and com¬ 
fort or encouragement to others so engaged; or 2d, those who do not recognize 
their allegiance to the United States. 

Those words describe, in definite legal language, acts of rebellion which 
bring the perpetrators within the legal powers of military suppression, con¬ 
ferred by law on the President: to engage in rebellion, to give aid, or comfort, 
or encouragement to those so engaged, are acts of war, as well as punishable 
offences; and the President is engaged in putting down that rebellion. He is 
daily engaged in arresting persons of the classes described in Maryland, and it 
would not now be a topic of complaint had not the partisans of slavery needed 
their votes. 

But if the right by law to arrest them be admitted, it is absurd to make a 
place of voting a sanctuary for traitors. It is absurd to say that the United 
States cannot arrest them anywhere, at any time; and to apply the law of Mary¬ 
land, forbidding an officer to march his soldiers in view of any poll, to the 
troops of the United States, is the assertion of the right of a State to direct the 
march and encampment of their army in time of war j a result totally inconsistent 
with supreme authority of the Constitution of the United States. The commit¬ 
tee append a copy of the Maryland act of 1860 on this subject, marked I). It 
needs no argument to show that such State prohibitions have no application to 
troops of the United States. It is quite natural that an attempt to secure the 
votes of traitors should be maintained by arguments involving the right of 
secession! 

Of course, no one will pretend that men who do not acknowledge their allegi¬ 
ance to the United States can have anything to do with an election in Maryland, 
or any other State, by law. No one can complain who himself declares he is not 
a citizen, but an enemy, if he is repelled from meddling in an election, and the 
order includes none but those who avow their status. 

There is no class of persons described as “ disloyalno inquiry into political 
views or opinions or sympathies is permitted; definite acts and avowals are the 
only criterion, and those acts and avowals place the person within the legal 
authority of military arrest. 

The next clause of the order has been misconstrued with equal inattention, i 

,lt directs the military officers and provost marshals to support the judges oj 


MILITARY AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 


17 


election in requiring an oath of allegisince to the United States as a test of citi¬ 
zenship, and a form of oath is appended to inform them what sort of an oath they 
are authorized to support the judges in requiring. 

The form of oath was prudently and wisely added to limit the military discre¬ 
tion and to prevent the officers from aiding any judge in requiring capricious, 
impertinent or irrelevant oaths, which might have been used to exclude loyal 
citizens on personal or party grounds. 

The order does not authorize the officer to challenge any voter, nor to require 
any oath of the voter, nor to insist that the judge should administer any. 

It does not direct or order, or even request any judge of election to administer 
any oath of allegiance. 

It assumes the right of the judge to sift the conscience of the voter, to ascer¬ 
tain his citizenship; and that from a refusal to acknowledge allegiance, and pro¬ 
mise to act accordingly, the judge might, in law, infer the person refusing not to 
be a citizen, and on that ground to refuse his vote. 

It is impossible to impeach the correctness of this; citizenship is matter of 
evidence, and the disavowal of the voter is the best evidence. The order assumes 
that the judges might so think. 

It assumed also that the resolution to apply this test might lead to violent op¬ 
position from the enemies of the government, and that the judges might be intim¬ 
idated into declining to purify the ballot-box of traitors’ votes. 

The order, therefore, placed a military force at the disposal of the judges, and 
under their orders^ to protect them, if they should see fit to insist on the oath of 
allegiance as a test of citizenship. 

The judges are by law the conservators of the peace at the polls; they can 
command what assistance they please, and it is.unreasonable to complain of their 
preferring to use the volunteers of the United States instead of the posse comita- 
tus, who would not have obeyed them in many places. 

Of course, such an order as this was fatal to any scheme of party tactics, which 
looked for success by a coalition of the pro-slavery Union men with the mass of 
the avowed secessionists, who, we are credibly informed, form a large proportion 
of the people in the eastern shore counties of the 1st district—but not a majority 
—and who have been openly and actively engaged in the rebellion, or in giving 
aid and comfort to those so engaged; many of them have been actually in arms, 
and many more actually and notoriously engaged in sending supplies, or forward¬ 
ing recruits to the rebels. 

Such men the loyal people of Maryland will not tolerate at the polls; and 
few but traitors will complain of the administration of the law which excludes 
them. 

The order to report the names of judges who refused to administer the oath 
was no menace, and cannot be so construed. It was a piece of information 
which it was important for the government to have; for it might give some 
useful information respecting the views and disposition of prominent and in¬ 
fluential men in the counties; an essential element in dealing with such a re¬ 
bellion. 

There was no order to arrest them, nor any hint of such a purpose. But the 
refusal was a fact which the government had a right to know, and it ordered it 
to be reported. 

The governor of Maryland complained of this order to the President, who 
modified its first clause, so as to strip it of its vigor without conciliating the 
acquiescence of the governor. For the order to arrest traitors the President 
substituted the following words : 

I. That all provost marshals and other military officers do prevent all disturb¬ 
ance and violence at or about the polls, whether offered by such persons as above 
described, or by any other person or persons whomsoever. 

It simply converts the military into a police for the polls. 

2 


18 


INTERFERENCE IN ELECTIONS BY 


Ilis letter in reply to Governor Bradford is a full answer to his complaint, and 
we incorporate the correspondence to complete this singular history. 


War Department, 

Washington, November 2, 1863. 


Sir : Yours of the 31st ultimo was received yesterday about noon, and since 
theal have been giving most earnest attention to the subject-matter of it. At 
my call General Schenck has attended, and he assures me it is almost certain that 
violence will be used at some of the voting places on election day, unless pre¬ 
vented b/his provost guards. He says that at some of those places the Union 
voters will not attend at all, or run a ticket, unless they have some assurance of 
protection. This makes the Missouri case of my action, in regard to which you 
express your approval. 

The remaining point of your letter is a protest against any person offering to 
vote being put to any test not found in the laws of Maryland. This brings us 
to a difference between Missouri and Maryland. With the same reason in both 
States, Missouri has, by law, provided a test for the voter with reference to the 
present rebellion, while Maryland has not. For example. General Trimble, cap¬ 
tured fighting 'as at Gettysburg, is, without recanting his treason, a legal voter 
by the laws of Maryland. Even General Schenck's order admits him to vote, if 
he recants upon oath. I think that is cheap enough. My order in Missouri, 
which you approve, and General Schenck’s order here, reach precisely the same 
end. Each assures the right of voting to all loyal men, and whether a man is 
loyal, each allows that man to fix by his own oath. Your suggestion that nearly 
all the candidates are loyal I do not think quite meets the case. In this struggle 
for the nation’s life, I cannot so confidently rely on those whose election may have 
depended upon disloyal votes. Such men, when elected, may prove true, but 
such votes are given them in the expectation that they will prove false. Nor do 
I think that to keep the peace at the polls, and to prevent the persistently disloyal 
from voting, constitutes just cause of offence to Maryland; I think she has her 
own example for it. If I mistake not, it is precisely what General Dix did when 
your excellency was elected governor. I revoke the first of the three propositions 
in General Schenck’s General Order No. 53, not that it is wrong in principle, but 
because the military being, of necessity, exclusive judges as to who shall be 
arrested, the provision is liable to abuse. For the revoked part I substitute the 
following : 

That all provost marshals and other military officers do prevent all disturbance 
and violence at or about the polls, whether offered by such persons as above de¬ 
scribed, or by any other person or persons whatsoever. 

The other two propositions of the order I allow to stand. General Schenck is 
fully determined, and has my strict order besides, that all loyal men may vote, 
and vote for whom they please. 

Your obedient servant, 


His Excellency A. W. Bradford, 

Governor of Maryland, 


A. LINCOLN, 
President of the United States. 


MILITARY AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 19 

The governor thought fit to publish a proclamation assailing the order (No. 53) 
for illegality and usurpation, of which the following is a copy : 

Governor's proclamation on subject of late election, embodying copy of Genei'al 
Schenclds order No. 53. 

STATE OF MARYLAND. 

Executive Department, Annapolis, 

November 2, 1863. 

PROCLAMATION BY THE GOVERNOR. 

To the citizens of the State, and more especially the judges of election: 

A military order, issued from the headquarters of the middle department,^’ 
bearing date the 27th ult., printed and circulated, as it is said, through the 
State, though never yet published here, and designed to operate on the approacji- 
ing election, has just been brought to my attention, and is of such a character 
and issued under such circumstances as to demand notice at my hands. 

This order reciting, that there are many evil disposed persons now at large 
in the State of Maryland, who have been engaged in rebellion against the la'jrful 
government, or have given aid and comfort, or encouragement to others so en¬ 
gaged, or who do not recognize their allegiance to the United States, and who 
may avail themselves of the indulgence of the authority which tolerates their 
presence, to embarrass the approaching election, or through it to foist enemies of 
the United States into power,” proceeds, among other things, to direct ‘‘all pro¬ 
vost marshals and other military officers, to arrest all such persons found at or 
hanging about, or approaching any poll or place of election, on the 4th of No¬ 
vember, 1863, and report such arrest to these headquarters.” 

This extraordinary order has not only been issued without any notice to, or 
consultation with the constituted authorities of the State, but at a time and un¬ 
der circumstances when the condition of the State, and the character of the can¬ 
didates are such as to preclude the idea that the result of that election can in 
any way endanger either the safety of the government, or the peace of the 
community. 

It is a well known fact that, with perhaps one single exception, there is not a 
congressional candidate in the State whose loyalty is even of a questionable char¬ 
acter, and in not a county of the State outside of the same congressional district 
is there, I believe, a candidate for the legislature or any State office, whose loyalty 
is not equally undoubted. In the face of this well known condition of things, 
the several classes of persons above enumerated are not only to be arrested at but 
“ approaching any poll or place of election.” And who is to judge whether 
voters thus on their way to the place of voting have given “ aid, comfort, or en- 
courdgement” to persons engaged in the rebellion, or that they “do not recog¬ 
nize their allegiance to the United States,” and may avail themselves of their 
presence at the polls “to foist enemies of the United States into power?” As I 
have already said, in a very large majority of the counties of the State there are 
not to be found gmong the candidates any such “ enemies of the United States,” 
but the provost marshals—created for a very diffe’rent purpose—and the other 
military officials who are thus ordered to arrest approaching voters are necessarily 
made by the order the sole and exclusive judges of who fall within the pre¬ 
scribed category : an extent of arbitrary discretion, under any circumstances the 
most odious, and more especially offensive and dangerous in view of the known 
fact that two at least of the five provost marshals of the State are themselves can¬ 
didates for important offices, and sundry of their deputies for others. 

This military order, therefore, is not only without justification when looking to 
the character of the candidates before the people, and rendered still more obnox¬ 
ious by the means appointed for its execution,, but is equally offensive to the 


20 


'[NTERFERENOE IN ELECTIONS BY 


sensibilities of the people themselves and the authorities of the State, looking to 
the repeated proofs they have furnished of an unalterable devotion to the govern- 
ernment. For more than two years past there has never been a time when, if 
every traitor and every treasonable sympathizer in the State had voted, they 
could have controlled, whoever might have been their candidates, a single de¬ 
partment of the State or jeopardized the success of the general government. No 
State in the. Union has been or is now actuated by more heartfelt or unwavering 
loyalty than Maryland—a loyalty intensified and purified by the ordeal through 
which it has passed ; and yet looking to what has lately transpired elsewhere and 
to the terms and character of this military order, one would think that in Mary¬ 
land and nowhere else is the government endangered by the many evil dis¬ 
posed persons that are now at large.’^ 

Within less than a month the most important elections have taken place in two 
of the largest States of the Union; in each of them candidates were before the 
people, charged by the particular friends of the government with being hostile 
to its interests, and whose election was deprecated as fraught with the most 
dangerous consequences to its success. One of the most prominent of these can¬ 
didates was considered so dangerously inimical to the triumph of the national 
cause, that he has been for months past banished from the country, and yet hun¬ 
dred^ of thousands of voters were allowed to approach the polls, and to attempt 
^^to foisU^ such men into power, and no provost marshals or other military offi¬ 
cers were ordered to arrest them on the way, or, so far as we have ever heard, 
even test their allegiance by an oath. 

With these facts before us, it is difficult to believe that the suggestion that the 
enemies of the United States may be foisted into power at our coming election, 
was the consideration that prompted this order ; but whatever may have been that 
motive, I feel it to be my duty to solemnly protest against such an intervention 
with the privileges of the ballot-box, and so offensive a discrimination against the 
rights of a loyal State. 

I avail myself of the occasion to call to the particular attention of the judges 
of election the fact that they are on the day of election clothed with all the autho¬ 
rity of conservator^ of the peace, and may summon to their aid any of the exec¬ 
utive officers of the county, and the whole power of the county itself to preserve 
order at the polls and secure the constitutional rights of the voters. 

It is also made their special duty^^ to give information to the State’s attorney 
for the county of all infractions of the State laws on the subject of elections, and 
by these laws it is forbidden to any “ commissioned or non-commissioned officers, 
having command of any soldier or soldiers quartered or posted in any district of 
any county of the State, to muster or embody any of said troops, or march any 
recruiting party within the view of any place of election during the time of hold¬ 
ing said election.” 

I need not, I am sure, remind them of the terms of the oath they are required 
to take before entering upon their duties, and according to which they swear to 
permit all persons to vote who shall offer to poll at the election, &c., who, in 
their judgment^ shallj according to the directions contained in the constitution and 
laws, he entitled to poll at the same election, and not to permit any person to poll 
at the same election who is not in (their) judgment qualified to vote as 
aforesaid.” 

It is \hQ judgment of the judges of election alone, founded upon the provisions 
of the constitution and laws of the State, that must determine the right to vote 
of any person offering himself for that purpose. I trust and believe that they 
will form that judgment, and discharge their duty, as their conscientious convic¬ 
tions of its requirements, under the solemn obligations they assume shall dictate, 
undeterred by an order to provost marshals to report them to headquarters.” 

Whatever power the State possesses shall be exerted to protect them for any 
thing done in the proper execution of its laws. 


MILITARY AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 


21 


Since writing the above, I have seen a copy of the President's letter to the 
chairman of the Union State Central Committee, hearing the same date with the 
order, and evidently showing that the order was unknown to him, that it would 
not have been approved by him, if he had known it, and that it is therefore all the 
more reprehensible, 

A. W. BRADFORD. 

By the Governor: 

Wm. B. Hill, 

Secretary of State. 

After the above was in print, at three o^clock this afternoon, I received from 
the President the following despatch : 

I revoke the first of the three propositions in General Schenck’s general 
order No. 53, not that it was wrong in principle, but because the military, being 
of necessity exclusive judge as to who shall be arrested, the provision is liable to 
abuse j for the revoked part I substitute the following : 

That all provost marshals and other military officers do prevent all disturb¬ 
ance and violence at or about the polls, whether ofi'ered by such persons as 
above described, orl)y any other person or persons whomsoever; the other two 
propositions I allow to stand; my letter at length will reach you to-night. 

A. LINCOLN. 

Whilst this modification revokes the authority of the provost marshals and 
military officers to arrest the classes of persons enumerated in the preamble to 
the order found at or hanging about, or approaching any poll or place of elec- 
tion,^^ it directs them to prevent all violence or disturbance about the polls, &e. 

To meet such disturbances, the judges- of election, as I have already stated, are 
clothed with ample powers, and I had received no previous intimation that there 
was any reason to apprehend a disturbance of any kind at the polls on the day 
of election. In the absence of any military display, there would certainly seem 
to be as little cause for such apprehensions as ever before existed. A prepara¬ 
tion by the government by military means, to provide for such a contingency, 
will be quite as likely to provoke as to subdue such a disposition. Not only so, 
but the military thus required to prevent violence or disturbance about the polls 
must necessarily be empowered to arrest the parties they may charge with such 
disorder, and they are still left in efiect the exclusive judges as to who shall be 
arrested^^—a power they may as readily abuse as any other. 

I regret, therefore, that I can perceive no such change in the general princi¬ 
ples of the order as to induce me to change the aforegoing proclamation. 

A. W. BRADFORD. 

Baltimore, Monday Evening^ November 2, 1863, 

That inflammatory manifesto was issued on the eve of the election, and carried 
dismay and dissension among the friends of the Union, and delight to its enemies. 
It falls little short of a declaration of war against'the United States troops then 
in Maryland. 

Under its auspices, and the order modified by the President, the secessionists 
instantly organized in less than twenty-four hours, circulated those documents, 
with the exhortation to all the enemies of the government to come and take the 
oath and vote, since nobody was to be arrested; and under those papers a seces¬ 
sionist was elected in the 5th district against the superior but divided vote of the 
unionists. 

That proclamation was much more liable to the charge of illegality than the 
order of which it complained. 

The law of Maryland charges the governor with no authority over elections, 
and vests him with no right to instruct the judges of election in the law of 
their duty. 


22 


INTERFERENCE IN ELECTIONS BY 


This proclamation was therefore a palpable usurpation. 

It denied the right of the United States to arrest their enemies at or approach¬ 
ing a Maryland poll. 

It converted the elective franchise into a sanctuary for traitors. 

It promised the judges of election that whatever pozt'cr/Ae State possesses 
should be exerted to protect them for anything done in the proper execution of its 
laws/^ and ‘that meant in any resistance to the military order to arrest traitors at 
the polls. 

That is, to stir up sedition and incite persons to oppose by force the authority 
of the United States. 

The governor bitterly complains of the suppression of his proclamation, instead 
of gratefully acknowledging the moderation which arrested its circulation instead 
of its author. 

His reference to the Ohio election is unfortunate, for there was no more 
attempt to prevent men in Maryland voting for the secessionist elected in the 6th 
district than in Ohio to prevent men voting for Vallandigham. 'The order was 
absolutely silent respecting candidates; it looked exclusively to the legal char¬ 
acter of the voter. 

It is true, doubtless, that there is a union majority in Maryland over every 
traitor and treasonable sympathizer; but it is equally true that the secession vote 
in the slaveholding counties, united to the unionists of pro-slavery proclivities 
might control the senate and paralyze the house of delegates, and decide the 
question of emancipation against the will of the people ; for a minority elect both 
houses of the legislature. 

It was quite possible that the union vote might be so divided in the 1st dis¬ 
trict, as it was in the 5th district, as to allow the secessionists to elect a seces¬ 
sionist. 

It would seem that with these facts before us, it ought not to have been dif¬ 
ficult for the governor to believe that the suggestion that the enemies of the Uni¬ 
ted States may be foisted into power at the coming election, was the considera¬ 
tion that prompted this order.^^ 

The loyal people of Maryland invoked the aid of the military to protect them 
from the votes of the disloyal ] and those only are indignant who wished by a 
humiliating coalition with the traitors to govern their loyal fellow citizens.. 

The order therefore was legal, not an usurpation, not a dictation to the loyal 
people, but at their instance, for their benefit, to exclude only arrant traitors 
whom the United States had a right to arrest even against the will of the people 
of Maryland. 

The execution of the order was as fair and upright as the orSer itself was legal 
and its purpose honest. 

The governor of Maryland has dealt in very general abuse of the officers 
charged with its execution, and numerous complaints are appended to his message 
in proof of his imputations. 

But for these proofs we might have feared there was some foundation for the 
complaints; but the slightest inspection of those papers discredit them, and offi¬ 
cial documents disprove them. 

We take the trouble to make a brief analysis of them, so that the accusation 
shall fail by the confessions of the accusers as well as the authentic- history of 
the occurrences. 

There are in Maryland twenty-one counties and the city of Baltimore, the lat¬ 
ter containing one-third of the people of the State. 

No illegal act is complained of by the governor in the city of Baltimore, or in 
sixteen of the twenty-one counties. 

In one of the counties in which the election is pronounced void—Frederick— 
no candidate opposed Mr. Thomas for Congress; he received 3,987 votes, Mr. 


i 


MILITARY AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 23 

Goldsboroiigh received 3,985 votes, and his competitor, Mr. Maffit, got 751 
votes* 

The objection to this election is confined to one voting place. 

At that place one person is stated to have been compelled to cast a ballot 
against his will. 

The person who states this affirms that the votes of loyal voters were refused 
because they would not take the oath prescribed by General Schenck. ’ 

But he also says, “ Your proclamation to the citizens and election judges of our 
State did not seem to be more regarded by the election judges at their polls than 
if it had never been issued.^^ 

So it was the judges of election who, the governor tells us, are the sole judges 
of the law, who thought his proclamation was not law, and who thought it was* 
legal to require an oath as the test of citizenship. 

Does one vote in one precinct in one county seriously compromise the seat of 
Mr. Thomas? 

Every other complaint is confined to the 1st district, and to four only of the 
eight counties composing it; and so futile is the case made against those coun¬ 
ties that the governor disclosed his ^ense of its weakness by the significant 
remark : In the statements and certificates which have been forwarded to me 
from different counties in that congressional district, I have been furnished, I 
presume, with an account of part only of the outrages to which their citizens 
were subject.^^ 

It is, however, only on these that the case rests, and they are a frail justification 
of the aspersions thrown by the governor on honorable men and his victorious 
antagonists. 

The chief complaints relate to Somerset, Worcester, and Kent counties. 

Mr. John W. Crisfield, the anti-emancipation candidate, wrote an account of 
the outrages to the Postmaster-General. 

On this the President promised to try any officer against whom the judges of 
election would file charges under oath. 

This was published all over the district, but no charges were so preferred, ex¬ 
cept by the judges of Mr. Crisfield’s precinct in his owii county. 

The irresponsible names, whose loose letters are appended to the governor’s 
message, wisely rested there; and the judges of election everywhere in the 
district, except under the eye and influence of Mr. Crisfield, did not care or dare 
or wish to prefer charges under oath, or knew none to prefer. 

It is to the charges against Captain Moore, at Mr. Crisfield’s polls, Princess 
Ann, in Somerset county,. that the governor alludes when he says, And in 
another district, after only one vote had been given, the polls were closed, the 
judges all arrested and sent out of the county, and military occupation taken of 
the town. 

The statement of Isaac D. Jones, (a secessionist ever since in 1832 he voted 
alone for secession resolutions in the Maryland legislature,) concurred in by four¬ 
teen other persons and the judges of election, but not under oatliy goes into many 
details ] but its substantial allegation is — 

1. That Captain Moore executed order No. 53 and could not recognize the 
President’s modification of it, because it had not been communicated to him. 

Of course, in this he was right. 

2. That- he (Moore) challenged Brittingham, the first voter, and required the 
oath to be administered to him, which the judges did, saying it was done under 
coercion. He took it and voted. 

No loyal man will complain because the oath was required. The voter him¬ 
self did not complain, for he took it and voted. • 

It is not said that any threat or hint of a threat was made to the judges, so 
that their acting under coercion is .not borne but by the admitted circumstances. 

The next voter was Arthur W. Crisfield, son of the candidate. Captain Mooro 


24 


INTERFERENCE IN ELECTIONS BY 


questioned his loyalty; an animated conversation ensued; Captain Moore chal¬ 
lenged him and demanded the oath. The judges said, “ We disapprove of this 
mode of conducting the election; we shall never get through : we are sworn to 
conduct the election according to the laws of Maryland. If we are not per¬ 
mitted to do so, we submit to arrest.’^ 

Of course, this dramatic style of language indicates invention. The judges 
certainly did not speak by inspiration the same words. What they really said 
we do not know. All we can suppose true is that they declined to administer the 
oath and were arrested; and that is what they say in substance. That is drama¬ 
tized thus : 

Captain Moore. “ You refuse then to carry out the order of G-eneral Schenck V* 

Judges. We decide to obey the proclamation of the governor and the order 
of the President.’^ 

Now the order of the President did not forbid, but approved the oath, and 
the governor’s proclamation, however gratuitous and unauthorized it was, did not 
forbid it nor say it was illegal. So the conversation is quite unintelligible. 

The statement proceeds : Captain Moore then —that is, at the close of this con¬ 
versation—arrested the judges, and said it was for refusing to obey General 
Schenck’s order. 

The judges then, that is, after their arrest, said the election was closed, and 
Captain Moore required them to report under arrest to him at a hotel. 

Sydney C. Long, candidate for register of wills, thus states the case : 

Arthur W. Crisfield was, after signifying his willingness to take the oath, in¬ 
terrogated by Captain Moore, and on the judges demurring to such proceedings, 
in a respectful manner, said vote was not taken, and they were immediately put 
under arrest, and the election thus arbitrarily stopped. 

By the former statement Mr. A. W. Crisfield did not express his willingness 
to take the oath, and the judges refused to administer 'the oath. This state¬ 
ment omits that refusal, and insinuates the vote was not taken, because the 
judges were arrested by Captain Moore. But the President, on the oath of these 
judges, ordered a military commission, presided over by General D. Tyler, a most 
upright and honorable gentleman, and for many years in the United States 
army, to try Captain Moore. That court found, on full examination of the wit¬ 
nesses, face to face, that the closing of the polls preceded the arrest of the 
judges; that Captain Moore was not guilty of transcending General Order No. 
53, and that he was not guilty of hindering Arthur W. Crisfield from voting, 
while willing to take the oath of allegiance. Your committee have carefully 
inspected the record of the proceedings of the commission, and append hereto the 
President’s order, with the findings of the commission, marked E. This dis¬ 
proves the two main allegations of the persons whose clamors the governor has 
published. It shows that the judges were not hindered in continuing the elec¬ 
tion, but refused to conduct it, and closed the polls of their own free and petulant 
will, and that the military force did not break up the election, nor hinder A. W. 
Crisfield from voting. 

But it ought further to be stated, that Captain Moore not only did not arrest 
the judges first, and close the polls afterwards, but after the judges had need¬ 
lessly and wilfully abandoned the election, and closed the polls. Captain Moore 
called on the people present to choose other judges, under the law of Maryland 
providing for that contingency, and to proceed with the election, which they 
refused to do. 

It is thought the whole procedure of closing the polls, and refusing to elect 
new judges, was arranged before the poll opened, and received the countenance 
of the anti-emancipation leaders. The transaction certainly bears that aspect. 

It is useless to go over the jumble of unauthenticated complaints from other 
regions of the same county. This one has been judicially investigated and 


MILITARY AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 25 

found to be false, though brought forward by seventeen men, claimed to be 
truthful. 

It may throw some light on the election in this county to state that in one 
district the secessionists armed themselves, drove the officer and men from the 
neighborhood of the polls, and took possession of them for the day; and that 
at these polls Mr. Creswell received but nine votes, out of a total vote of over 
200? That in the county, while Mr. Creswell received 348 votes, and Mr. Cris- 
field received 691 votes, the secessionist local candidate received 834 votes, 
which were not cast for either candidate for Congress, but confined to the county 
and legislative ticket, and elected the whole of it; and the county is now 
represented by what is. understood to be an unbroken secession delegation in 
the legislature, one of them under parole for his good conduct!! 

We think this sufficiently illustrates the expediency of the order, the peculiar 
circumstances requiring it, and the entire groundlessness of the complaints of 
violence and outrage, published to the world, by the governor of Maryland.— 
They serve no purpose but to aid the enemies of the government, and to prove 
that the anti-emancipationists, having lost the election, lost their temper also. 

The other case specially dwelt on by the governor, is that of Colonel C. C. 
Tevis, in Kent county. The following is his account of it: 

On the day preceding the election, the officer in command of the regiment 
which had been distributed among the counties of the eastern shore, and who 
had himself landed in Kent county, commenced his operations by arresting and 
sending across the bay some ten or more of the most estimable and distinguished 
of its citizens, including several of the most steadfast and uncompromising loy¬ 
alists of the shore. The jail of the county was entered, the jailor seized, impri¬ 
soned and afterwards sent to Baltimore, and prisoners confined therein under 
indictment were set at liberty. The commanding officer referred to gave the 
first clue to the character of the disloyalty against which he considered himself 
as particularly commissioned, by printing and publishing a proclamation in 
which, referring to the election to take place the next day, he invited all the 
truly loyal to avail themselves of that opportunity and establish' their loyalty 
* by giving a full and ardent support to the whole government ticket upon the 
platform adopted by the Union League Convention,^ declaring that ^ none other 
is recognized by the federal authorities as loyal or worthy of support of any one 
who desires the peace and restoration of the Union.^ 

To secure the election of that ticket seemed to be the business to which he 
and his officers especially devoted themselves throughout the day of election. 
In the statements and certificates which had been forwarded to me from difi‘er- 
ent counties in that congressional district, I have been furnished, I presume, 
with an account of part only of the outrages to which their citizens were sub¬ 
jected. The ^ government ticket ’ above referred to, was, in several, if not all of 
these counties, designated by its color; it was a yellow ticket, and armed with 
that, a voter could safely run the gauntlet of the sabres and carbines that 
guarded the entrance to the polls, and known sympathizers with the rebellion 
were, as certified to me, allowed to vote unquestioned, if they would vote that 
ticket, whilst loyal and respected citizens, ready to take the oath, were turned 
back by the officers in charge without even allowing them to approach the 
polls.’^ 

Your committee are credibly informed that scarcely a line of this narrative 
gives a truthful impression of the events. 

The arrest of the ten or more of the most estimable and distinguished of the 
citizens of Kent, which preceded the election had notliing to do with the election, 
and was for very different causes. 

On October 31, 1863, Mr. B. H. Gardener complained in writing to Colonel 
Piatt, that he had been indicted and held to bail in $3000 for enlisting negroes 
for the United States, called in the indictment, abducting slaves;’’ and that 


26 


INTERFEKBNCE IN ELECTIONS BY 


the principal actors in the affair was Jas. B. Ricaud, candidate for the State 
senate, Geo. Vickers, sr., Jesse H. Hines, David A. Benjamin, Colonel Edward 
Wilkins, William P. Francis, Thomas Baker, John D. Todd, George B. West-, 
cott, Samuel W. Spence, and Charles Stanly.^^ 

On this complaint an order was made on the 1st of November, 1863, as fol¬ 
lows : Colonel Tevis will arrest the above-named men, and send them to these 
headquarters.” 

It is well known that the judge of that district is a violent secessionist, who 
had repeatedly prostituted the power of the judiciary into an instrument for the 
prosecution of loyal men; he had caused the indictment of General H. H. Golds- 
borough, for arresting certain traitors, though he did not dare actually to incarce¬ 
rate him on his indictment; and for that and other outrages he had been arrested 
and sent to Fort Warren, when he was released by a mistaken clemency amount¬ 
ing to infatuation; and he signalized his return to the bench by a renewal of his 
evil practice, till the public indignation has lately compelled him to resign his 
judicial position. 

Of course, it was not to be expected that the United States would allow a dis¬ 
loyal judge to pervert the judicial machinery of the State to annul the law al¬ 
lowing slaves to volunteer; and the order for the arrest of the parties implicated 
was given. 

When Colonel Tevis arrived in Kent county he learned that Medler^, Per¬ 
kins, and Fisher, had been also concerned in this prosecution, and they were also 
arrested for that cause. All who were arrested were sent to Baltimore on the 
3d of November. 

Mr. George Vickers had also written an article, published in the Kent News,” 
on the 26tli and 31st of October, inciting the people to resist by force-the enlist¬ 
ment of slaves, and the publisher of that paper was arrested with Vickers. 

Now, to cite these arrests as the commencement of military interference with 
the election, and to suppress the sufficient and wholly different causes for the 
arrest, evinces a want of that candor which should characterize an executive 
communication. Other proof than a mere inuendo must connect them with the 
elections. 

Colonel Tevis, after executing this order, issued, on the advice of the provost 
marshal, the proclamation of which the governor complains, and whose words he 
quotes, but colors with an insinuation which their meaning will not justify. 

That proclamation was beyond the authority given to Colonel Tevis, but the 
suggestion conveyed by the governor that the military were used to enforce 
that proclamation is wholly, without proof. It is quite certain that only fifty 
copies were printed; that the provost marshal declared that all of them were 
withdrawn and suppressed before the election, and nowhere was there the least 
attempt to exclude any one from voting for the anti-emancipation or for the 
secession candidates; and the governor does not venture to say that any such 
attempt was actually made. 

So soon as this proclamation was known in Baltimore, the use which would be 
made of it to connect it with the arrests and to assail the integrity of the elec¬ 
tion was seen, and it was instantly disapproved by the general. Colonel Tevis or¬ 
dered to be arrested, and the persons who were candidates were at once returned 
to Kent by steamer, on the night of the 3d of November, and they arrived early 
on the 4th, the day of election. Mr. Ricaud now sits in the State senate from 
that county. They were returned, after disclaiming any share in the prosecution 
of Gardner, but on parole to appear for further investigation. 

The statement of outrages in Kent, on which the governor relies, is signed by 
four persons who are considered as avowed and notorious secessionists of the 
county, and by nobody else—E. Couch, W. H. Pennington, Philip Medlers, and 
S. Comegys—all defeated secession candidates at that election. To what consid¬ 
eration is their statement entitled ? Besides it there is nothing impeaching the 


/ 


military and naval officers. 


27 


election in tliat county. No union man has furnished the governor with any state¬ 
ment of facts. 

But what is conclusive of itself, is that these defeated candidates do not say 
that any one legal voter, who would take the oath, was hindered from voting, nor 
that any one person was coerced to vote against his wishes, nor that any one was 
hindered from approaching the polls by any threat or violence of our soldiers, or 
by the. fear of it. Their whole complaint is that the authority of the United 
States was present; and this, to disloyal men, was grievance enough to avoid the 
election. 

On the other hand, the report of Colonel Tevis, a loyal gentleman, is entitled 
to quite as much weight as the governor’s surmises and insinuations, unsupported 
by facts, and to vastly more weight than any statement of defeated and angry 
secessionists. 

Colonel Tevis, in his official report, makes the following statement: 

^ “ Captain Frazier informed me that repeated threats had been made against 
his life, and that, unless some decided stand were taken by the military authori¬ 
ties, there would be serious disturbances at the polls. In consequence of this, I 
seized all the arms in the possession of suspected persons; private fowling-pieces 
were returned to their owners on the day succeeding the election, and some four 
boxes of United States muskets, many of them loaded, were sent to Baltimore. A 
number of cavalry sabres and revolvers were seized, later, by some of my officers, 
and are now in this camp awaiting your orders. From observation and report I 
am convinced it was the intention of the secesh and anti-government party to 
seize the polls and prevent the small minority of loyal men from voting j for the 
inhabitants of Kent county are, as a class, as truly disloyal as any of their friends 
actually in rebellion, and are only prevented by their isolated position, on the 
other side of the Chesapeake bay, from openly taking up arms against the 
Union.” 

After detailing the disposition of his force he proceeds: 

The orders to these officers were ^ to carry out department General Orders 
No. 53 to the letter, and to avoid all violence.’ In accordance with these orders 
the oath therein prescribed was administered to every one whose loyalty was ques¬ 
tioned ; and on that oath being taken every one was allowed to vote. Not more 
than six in all refused, although some were deterred from coming to the polls by 
the knowledge of the fact that it would be required of them. There was no dis¬ 
turbance of any kind at any poll, and no complaint was made to me by any one 
of violence or of undue exercise of authority on the part of the military, except 
in cases of liquor sellers, all of whose establishments were closed by orders till 
after the election. 

‘‘ A letter signed A. P. Thruston, Captain, &c., from department headquarters, 
directed me to secure, when practicable, all copies of Governor Bradford’s procla¬ 
mation, which was I believe widely circulated, but I saw no copy of it myself 
until after my return to this place. Captain Pemberton, 3d Maryland cavalry, 
destroyed every copy which fell into his hands. 

At the polls at Massey’s,Cross-roads, a Lieutenant-Colonel Massey, 2d regi¬ 
ment Home Guards, rendered himself extremely officious by his exertions in favor 
of the anti-administration ticket; I found him there on my arrival, in the judges’ 
room, where he seemed to preside.” 

After thus disposing of the flagrant charges, it is useless to consume time in 
showing the worthlessness of petulant and incoherent tattle, scrawled by insig¬ 
nificant but virulent enemies of the nation or mere partisans, disappointed of 
office. • • 

There does not appear to your committee the least reason to believe that a 
single person was hindered from voting by the military in the 1st congressional 
district, who had not been engaged in the rebel service or in aiding and abetting 


28 


INTERFERENCE IN ELECTIONS BY 


them, nor that the judges excluded any voter who proved his citizenship by con¬ 
fessing its obligations under oath. 

The case of Isaac J. Davis, at the 1st election district in Worcester, falls in the 
first category; as also Joseph C. Bush, at Salisbury, who was willing enough to 
take the oath, but was notoriously giving aid and comfort to the enemy by carry¬ 
ing the mail to and from Virginia. 

The previous elections in Maryland have been so grossly misrepresented, and 
yet have been so decisive and throw so much light upon the last, that we think 
we cannot more fitly close this part of our labors than by briefly recounting them 
since the rebellion. 

At the special election of the 24th of April, 1861, in Baltimore, the secession 
candidates were not opposed and received about 9,000 votes. 

On the 13th of June, following, a special election was held for Congress. The 
question was, war or peace, which meant union or disunion. 

There were no military orders nor any military interference, and none were 
ever pretended. 


In the 6th district— 

Calvert, union, received. 4,467 

Harris, disunion. 4,305 

In the 5th district— 

Thomas, union, received. 10,582 

No opposition, but scattering votes. 320 

In the 4th district— 

Davis, war. 6,212 

May, peace. 8,420 

In the 3d district— 

Leary, union. 6,702 

Preston, secesh. 6,200 

In the 2d district— 

Webster, union. 7,251 

No opposition, scattering votes... 126 

In the 1st district— 

Crisfield, union,.... 7 181 

Henry, secesh,. 5^331 

Aggregate vote. 63,597 

Union vote. 43,750 

Union majority. 19,841 


There was no military force anywhere but in the 4th district in Baltimore City. 
The city was in the hands of Kane’s police of the 19th of April memory; the 
secessionist police commissioners ruled the city, and they organized a special .po¬ 
lice of 1,900 men for the day of election, which with the 400 or 500 regular 
police, about equalled the secessionist majority for May. 

The next election was that-for governor, in November, 1861. Bradford was 
the union candidate, Howard was the disunion candidate. The only issue was 
union or disunion. The orders above quoted were issued, but Governor Bradford 





















MILITARY AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 29 

does net think them wrong ^ and everybody knows ther«e was no military force 
used to execute them—except in Worcester county on the Virginia line. 


At that election-— 

Bradford received. 56,498 

Howard received. 26,086 

The aggregate vote was. 83,584 

Bradford's Union majority. 31,412 


Bradford’s vote was the largest vote ever cast in Maryland for any candidate. 

His majority was greatly the largest ever received in Maryland. The 
aggregate vote was not so large as that at the Presidential election by about 
8,900, but the falling off was in Baltimore, where the secessionists in part did 
not vote, Bradford receiving 17,922 votes and Howard receiving 3,347, making 
an aggregate of 20,269, instead of 29,063 cast for the three Presidential can¬ 
didates. 

On the great question of emancipation in Maryland, union men resolved to 
settle it without the aid of traitors or those who disavowed their allegiance to 
the United States. The anti-emancipationists, however, sought the aid of seces¬ 
sionists, and failed to get it except in one or two counties. Their votes, when 
cast at all, were cast for secessionist candidates, and not for the anti-emancipation 
union candidates. It is singular that this fact should not have silenced the 
complaints of the defeated unionists. 

The returns from the State show that a small vote was cast everywhere; in 
three of the districts there was no competing candidate for Congress, and of 
course the vote was small, for no one doubted the result between Goldsborough 
and Maffit, the emancipation and anti-emancipation candidates for comptroller. 

In the 5th district, however, there was a severe contest between an emancipa¬ 
tionist, an anti-emancipationist, and a secessionist; the vote was pretty full, 
lacking less than a thousand of the vote in the animated contest of 1861, being 
about 8,000. The joint union vote was greater than the secession vote by 
1,100. The secessionists had only 599 majority over the highest union can¬ 
didate. The governor does not complain of the freedom of the election in 
that district being invaded. 

In the first district there was also a contest, but it was between emancipation 
and anti-emancipation unionists. There was no secession candidate. The elec¬ 
tion returns correspond with this state of facts. The union vote is {ully out. 
The secession vote was not cast, except very partially, and for local county officers 
almost exclusively. They stood indifferent between the competing loyal can¬ 
didates, except in Cecil county. The returns show that the vote cast for the two 
union candidates was rather above the union strength formerly developed in that 
district. 


In Caroline county the vote was— 

For Crisfield (union) in 1861. 973 

He and Creswell got in 1863. 1,380 

In Queen Anne county— 

Crisfield got in 1861..... 860 

He and Cresswell got in 1863. 833 

In Dorchester county— 

Crisfield got in 1861.. 1,413 

He and Creswell got in 1863. 1,627 
















80 


IKTEKFERENCE IN ELECTIONS BY 


In Talbot county— 

Crisfield got in 1861. 824 

He and Cresswell got in 1863. 729 

In Somerset— 

Crisfield got in 1861. 1,891 

He and Creswell got in 1863.... 1,139 


(It was in this county that the judges closed one of the chief polls, and so 
reduced the union vote.) 


In Worcester county— 

Crisfield got in 1861... 1,120 

He and Creswell got in 1863. 1,803 


(In this county Cresswell actually received 1,347 votes, many more than the 
whole union vote in 1861.) 

In Kent county— 


Webster got in 1861 .. 938 

Crisfield and Creswell got in 1863. 1,057 

In Cecil county— 

Webster got in 1861. 1,697 

Crisfield and Creswell got in 1863. 3,807 


In this county there was a coalition between the anti-emancipationists and a 
part of the secessionists, which swells the aggregate. 

It has already been explained that in Somerset county about 800 secessionists 
voted for and elected all the county officers, but would not support Mr. Crisfield 
in his own county, and voted for nobody for Congress or comptroller. In the 
face of these facts, comment is useless and misunderstanding impossible. It is 
clear— 

1st. That the whole union vote was thrown for the two union candidates for 
Congress. 

2d. There is not the least proof of any undue influence exerted between the 
union candidates and the voters by the military authority. ^ 

3d. Except in one county the secessionists did not vote for Congress to any 
extent, but confined themselves to local candidates or abstained from voting 
at all. 

Your committee append to this Report the Proclamation of the Governor of 
Maryland, of the 3d November last, with documents thereto attached and 
marked F; and a copy of the proclamation of General Schenck, commander of 
the department, of the same date, (marked G,) accompanied by the letter of the 
President of the day before. This they deem due alike to the subject and to the 
character of the parties concerned. 

The contrast of the conduct of the Governor of Delaware and of the governor 
of Maryland will fitly close this report. 

The lattei treated the order of General Schenck as an insult to the loyalty of 
Maryland, and an usurpation against her laws. 

The former accepted the order as the best expression of the wishes of the loyal 
people, glad to receive -aid in preserving the ballot-box from rebel votes; and 
added at its foot his exhortation to the good people and officers of Delaware 
to aid in its enforcement, and stamped his approbation by fixing the seal of 
State. 












MILITARY AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 


81 


The legislature of Delaware, at their session in March, 1863, under the con¬ 
trol of a political party hostile to the principles on which the present administra¬ 
tion came into power, and acting under the passions inspired by the report of a 
joint committee of the two houses to take proofs of the ^‘interference” of the fed¬ 
eral military officers in the election in that State of the preceding year, passed a 
very stringent and penal act for the -punishment of such interference. We ap- 
.pend a copy of this act, marked H. The committee, in their voluminous report, 
seem blind to the fact that a state of things existed in Delaware not less deplora¬ 
ble than that which prevailed in Kentucky, and evince the same bitter hostility 
to the national administration, its principles and policy—a hostility not surpassed 
in its style of denunciation even by the rebel journals published at Richmond. 
The following extract will be sufficient to characterize the whole document: 

“ Your committee might, perhaps, with propriety here close their report, sub¬ 
mitting the facts elicited without further' comment, to the general assembly and 
people of the State, as, conclusive of a deliberate design and purpose on the part 
of the leading republican politicians of the State, and an unscrupulous and des¬ 
potic administration at Washington, to invade the sovereignty of Delaware, and 
trample under foot the most sacred right of her citizens. The great indignity, 
however, offered to the State by the federal authorities in the invasion of her soil 
by federal soldiery for the purpose of influencing the result of an election, will 
justify the committee in expressing, in conclusion, their unqualified condemna¬ 
tion, both of the action of the federal administration and the traitorous conspira¬ 
tors among our own citizens, who, for partisan purposes alone, sought to defeat 
the fair expression of the popular will at the polls by the potent influence of fed¬ 
eral bayonets. 

“ The relations of State and federal authority are too plainly defined by the 
written Constitution, that gives to the general government every power which it 
can rightfully exercise, and are too well understood by the people of the whole 
country to permit your committee, even in the exercise of the most liberal charity, 
to ascribe this great outrage to the ignorance and imbecility of the novices at 
Washington. Influenced by party considerations alone, the federal administra¬ 
tion, disregarding the limitations upon federal power plainly written in the Con¬ 
stitution of the country, has been guilty before the whole country of invading 
one of the smallest States of the Union, not at the instance and request of the 
constituted authorities of the State, but at the solicitation of corrupt and unscru¬ 
pulous neighborhood politicians. If this administration had done no previous 
wrongful act; if its history had been marked by a strict regard for constitutional 
obligations; if it had not unnecessarily plunged the whole country in ruinous 
civil war; if it had built.no bastiles; deprived no man of his liberty; suspended 
no writs of habeas corpus; muzzled no presses, nor invaded the right of free 
thought and free speech, this single act of invading one of the feeblest States of 
the Union, for no other purpose than to determine the result of her local election, 
is, and ought to be, sufficient to brand it with infamy and everlasting disgrace. 
Reprehensible, however, as has been the action of the powers at Washington, its 
criminality finds a parallel in the disgraceful, wicked, damning'treachery of the 
in grate conspirators in our own midst, who, with malign hearts and lying lips, 
assured the administration of the necessity for its interference with the domestic 
concerns of Delaware, and by deception and falsehood gave the excuse to irre¬ 
sponsible power for the outrage and wrong of which your committee complain. 
No language could betray their baseness. No time can efface their guilt, or 
remove the stigma from their memory. Your committee will, therefore, turn from 
objects so loathing, and leave them to the judgment of their fellow-men, objects 
of contempt and scorn,” 

It is but another instance of that blind party rage which has contributed so 
much to embarrass and protract the war, by giving encouragement to the insur- 


32 


INTERFEEENCE IN ELECTIONS ETC. 


gents, and strengtliening their hopes that the internal dissensions of the loyal 
States will in the end insure their success and independence. 

The statute of Delaware, founded upon this report, and upon the joint resolu¬ 
tions of the two houses of January 29, falling little short of a declaration of war 
against the United States, (hereto appended, marked I,) ,is plainly in violation 
of the federal Constitutioir. It is true it assumes to punish only such military 
officers as are citizens or inhabitants'’ of that State, for having soldiers present 
at any voting place; but it is obvious that the State has no more authority to 
control such officers, or to punish them for acts done in the line of their duty, 
as military officers in the service of the United States, than to do the same thing 
to others not citizens or inhabitants of Delaware. If she can do it in the one 
case she may in the other; and if she can dictate what the national military 
forces shall not do on one occasion within her limits, she may carry her pretensions 
to the length of excluding them entirely from her borders. It was out of just 
such claims of State prerogative that the principle and practice of secession and 
rebellion sprang. The government of the United States would be weak and con¬ 
temptible indeed should it permit for a moment its military officers to be dealt 
with by any- State, large or small, for acts done in pursuance of their duty and 
by the command of their superiors, especially in time of war. ^ 

On the 13th of November, 1863, General Schenck, then in command of the 
8th army corps and of the middle district, embracing Delaware, issued his procla¬ 
mations (appended and marked K,) prohibiting all persons from voting at the 
then ensuing election who had been engaged in rebellion against the government, 
or who had given aid and comfort or encouragement to others so engaged, or who 
did not recognize their allegiance to the United States. 

We think this measure was justified not only by the state of disaffection 
notoriously existing in that State, but by th^ acts of hostile legislation which we 
have cited. Precisely the same reasons for it existed as had demanded the like 
proclamations of General Schofield in Missouri, General Burnside in Kentucky, 
and General Schenck in Maryland. And we take pleasure in adding that Gov¬ 
ernor Cannon, blessed with a clearer insight into the necessities of the times, and 
a clearer perception of the demands of patriotism, than the governor of Maryland 
seemed to possess, gave his ready aid to this proclamation, repressive only of 
traitors and protective of loyal men. 

The committee see no necessity for such legislation as is proposed by the bill 
referred to them, and report the same back to the Senate, and recommend that 
it do not pass. All which is respectfully submitted, and the committee ask to 
be discharged from the further consideration of the subject. 

J. M. HOWAED, 

For the Committee. 












LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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